The Wikipedia article of the day for February 1, 2020 is Prince Romerson.
The Wikipedia article of the day for January 31, 2020 is Roman temple of Bziza.Beijing: The death toll rose to 170 in the new virus outbreak in China on Thursday as foreign evacuees from the worst-hit region begin returning home under close observation and world health officials expressed “great concern” that the disease is starting to spread between people outside of China.
Thursday’s figures cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in the epicentre of the outbreak in Hubei province and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The news comes as the 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the Hubei province city of 11 million where the outbreak originated, are undergoing three days of testing and monitoring at a Southern California military base to make sure they do not show signs of the virus.
A group of 210 Japanese evacuees from Wuhan landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on a second government-chartered flight, according to the foreign ministry. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever. Three of the 206 Japanese who returned on Wednesday tested positive for the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a parliamentary session.
France, New Zealand, Australia and other countries are also pulling out their citizens or making plans to do so.
World Health Organization emergencies chief said the few cases of human-to-human spread of the virus outside China — in Japan, Germany, Canada and Vietnam — were of “great concern” and were part of the reason the UN health agency’s director-general was reconvening a committee of experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.
The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.
Dr Michael Ryan spoke at a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday after returning from a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government leaders. He said China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge” posed by the outbreak.
To date, about 99 percent of the cases are in China. Ryan estimated the death rate of the new virus at two percent, but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.
In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10 percent of people who caught it. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.
Scientists say there are many questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how easily it spreads and how severe it is.
In a report published Wednesday, Chinese researchers suggested that person-to-person spread among close contacts occurred as early as mid-December.
“Considerable efforts” will be needed to control the spread if this ratio holds up elsewhere, researchers wrote in the report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
More than half of the cases in which symptoms began before 1 January were tied to a seafood market, but only eight percent of cases after that have been, researchers found. They reported the average incubation period was five days.
London: A joint motion, combining five different resolutions tabled by Members of the European Parliament against India's Citizenship Amendment Act, was debated at the Plenary session in Brussels, with an expected vote on the motion on Thursday postponed until March.
The debate opened with a statement by Helena Dalli, the Vice-President of the European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who spoke strongly in favour of the "rich, frank and open" relationship the European Union (EU) shares with India.
She highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to Brussels in March for the 15th India-EU Summit.
"We believe that it is the role of the Supreme Court of India to assess the compliance of the law with the Constitution and we are confident that the ongoing judicial process will contribute to appeasing the tensions and violence witnessed over the past weeks in the country," said Dalli, who concluded the debate with a message to "pursue and intensify" dialogue with India as a "respected democracy" and valued EU partner.
Two Indian-origin MEPs, Dinesh Dhamija and Neena Gill, were among a host of members who spoke up in India's favour to point out elements of "disinformation" around the CAA and the NRC within the parliamentary motion.
Thierry Mariani, a French MEP, alluded to the "hand of Pakistan" in the motion being tabled, while others condemned it as meddling in another country's internal affairs.
Pakistan-origin MEP Shaffaq Mohammed and others such as S&D's John Howarth and VERTS/ALE's Scott Ainslie described the CAA as a "highly discriminatory" legislation and alleged that the EU had crumbled in the face of India's diplomatic lobby and prioritised trade and business interests over human rights concerns by postponing a vote on the motion.
"The only lobby that has won today is that of common sense and respect," countered ECR's Polish MEP Ryszard Czarnecki.
Earlier, the European Parliament had announced that the vote on the motion would be postponed to the Plenary session in March.
"Following a decision by MEPs at the opening of Wednesday Plenary session in Brussels, the vote on the resolution on India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) 2019 has been postponed to the March session, said a statement from the European Parliament.
One of the groups behind the motion, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D), said the reason for the postponement was because the CAA was undergoing a legal process in India.
"As the Supreme Court in India will rule in the coming days linked to this issue and, as such, the law may be adapted, it was considered better to vote on the resolution in the European Parliament when there is full clarity on the situation," a spokesperson said.
However, another group GUE/NGL, objected to the postponement, saying they "disagreed" with the delay.
Meanwhile, the government sources in Delhi claimed a diplomatic victory over the vote delay and said friends of India prevailed over those of Pakistan in the European Parliament.
"Strenuous efforts of outgoing British MEP Shaffaq Mohammad to have a resolution passed by the European Parliament against India on the penultimate day before Brexit were defeated," a source said.
The motion takes note of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) statement last month, which described the CAA as "fundamentally discriminatory in nature", and also of other UN as well as the European Union (EU) guidelines on human rights as it calls on the Indian government to "repeal the discriminatory amendments".
The debate on CAA on Wednesday followed the European Parliament's historic ratification of the Brexit bill, under which the UK is set to formally leave the economic bloc on Friday.
"While the CAA's stated goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome, an effective national asylum and refugee policy should be just and holistic in nature and apply to all those in need," notes the motion, which describes the CAA as "discriminatory in nature and dangerously divisive".
The Indian government has maintained that the CAA, which was passed by the Indian Parliament last month, is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.
It has been extremely critical of the move in Brussels, which the European Commission the executive arm of the economic bloc has sought to distance itself from.
"As members of Inter Parliamentary Union, we should respect sovereign processes of fellow legislatures, especially in democracies," Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday wrote to European Parliament President David Maria Sassoli.
The European Parliament motion is critical of any protection being denied to Muslims and that even though India also shares a border with Bhutan, Burma, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the CAA does not bring Sri Lankan Tamils under its purview, who form the largest refugee group in India and who have been resident in the country for over 30 years.
"Amnesty International India has pointed out that the CAA does not bring under its purview other persecuted minorities, including Muslim populations such as the Rohingya in Burma, Ahmadis in Pakistan, Hazaras in Afghanistan and Bihari Muslims in Bangladesh," it notes.
Washington: The White House and Senate Republicans worked aggressively on Wednesday to discount damaging revelations from John R Bolton and line up the votes to block new witnesses from testifying in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, in a push to bring the proceeding to a swift close.
As the Senate opened a two-day, 16-hour period of questioning from senators, Trump laced into Bolton, his former national security adviser, whose unpublished manuscript contains an account that contradicts his impeachment defense. The president described Bolton on Twitter as a warmonger who had “begged” for his job, was fired, and then wrote “a nasty & untrue book.”
On Capitol Hill, Trump’s aides circulated a letter informing Bolton that the White House was moving to block publication of his forthcoming book, in which he wrote that the president refused to release military aid to Ukraine until its leaders committed to investigating his political rivals. That is a core element of the Democrats’ case, which charges Trump with seeking to enlist a foreign government to help him win reelection this year.
Before the trial convened, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and other Republicans signalled that they were regaining confidence that they would be able to cobble together the 51 votes needed to block new witnesses and documents and bring the trial to an acquittal verdict as soon as Friday, after the revelations from Bolton, reported Sunday by The New York Times, had threatened to knock their plans off course.
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No 3 Senate Republican, declared that he had “heard enough” and predicted that the Senate would vote to acquit the president by week’s end.
“I’m ready to vote on final judgment,” Barrasso told reporters. Asked if Republicans planned to move directly to a vote on the two articles of impeachment on Friday, Barrasso said, “Yes, that’s the plan.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Democrats were sounding a note of pessimism about the prospect of witnesses and securing new evidence in the trial, even as they used their questions to make the case that an impeachment trial without additional witnesses and documents amounted to a cover-up.
“We’ve always known it will be an uphill fight on witnesses and documents because the president and Mitch McConnell put huge pressure on these folks,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said during a break in the trial.
“Is it more likely than not? Probably no,” Schumer said. “But is it a decent, good chance? Yes.”
For Republicans, it appeared as if they were on the verge of giving Trump what he has wanted all along: an acquittal that he could boast about on the campaign trail — delivered before he goes to the Capitol next Tuesday for his State of the Union address.
Inside the Senate chamber, senators spent more than six hours grilling House managers and White House lawyers about the definition of obstruction; the meaning of executive privilege; the history of security aid to Ukraine; the role of Hunter Biden, the son of former vice-president Joe Biden, on the board of a Ukrainian energy company; and the whistleblower who first raised concerns about Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine.
In accordance with impeachment protocol, senators wrote their queries on small cards, which were read aloud by Chief Justice John Roberts, who presided over the trial. In their responses, Trump’s lawyers offered their most expansive defence of the president to date, effectively arguing that a president cannot be removed from office for demanding political favors if he believes his reelection is in the national interest.
“Every public official I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” said Alan M Dershowitz, the celebrity defence lawyer and constitutional scholar who is part of the Trump’s legal team. “Mostly, you’re right.”
“If the president does something which he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he said.
Many of the arguments and much the day was tailored to convincing a few Republicans who remained holdouts on the question of whether to call witnesses. McConnell gave his party’s first question on Wednesday to Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in an effort to allay the concerns of the three lawmakers, Republican moderates who are swing votes on the issue. The trio teamed up to ask Trump’s lawyers how they should judge the president if they conclude he acted in the Ukraine matter with both political and policy motives.
The selection of Collins, who is facing the toughest reelection campaign in her long Senate career, was revealing: It suggested that McConnell was keenly focused on giving her every opportunity to have her voice heard before moving forward. When she rose to announce herself, she became the first senator other than the two leaders to have a speaking role in the trial.
Notably absent from the group was the fourth Republican who had expressed interest in witnesses: Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a close friend of McConnell’s who has said he will not decide whether to support witnesses until after the question period has closed.
On Tuesday, McConnell had privately warned his rank-and-file members that he did not currently have the votes to stop Democrats from summoning witnesses. One after the other on Wednesday, in statements and interviews in the Capitol, they made clear they would side with their leader.
Senator Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, who had previously floated the idea of a witness deal, said Wednesday that he was “very, very skeptical” of new witnesses. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, facing a tough reelection in a swing state, issued a statement saying that he had heard enough and would vote against hearing from anyone else.
McConnell summoned Murkowski to his office on Wednesday morning for a private meeting before the trial began, and she emerged refusing to answer questions about whether she would ultimately support the call for witnesses.
“We still got some folks who are, like I said, assessing,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican. But the leaders were planning as if the defeat of a bid for witnesses was a certainty; Thune said it was likely that if it did fail, Republicans would move swiftly for an acquittal.
Democrats would need the votes of four Republicans to compel the Senate to subpoena witnesses and new documents. But it seems increasingly likely that Alexander, who is retiring from the Senate and is thus free to do as he chooses, would break from his party.
Trump is charged with abusing his power and obstructing Congress by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and concealing evidence of it from lawmakers who were investigating.
In the first hint of a possible crack in Democratic unity, Senator Doug Jones of Alabama suggested Wednesday that he might vote to acquit Trump on the charge of obstruction of Congress, though he said that the president’s own behaviour was strengthening the case against him. And Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he thought that Hunter Biden might be a relevant witness.
“I’m still looking at that very closely; there are some things that trouble me about it,” Jones said, without elaborating. “But I will tell you this about the obstruction charge: The more I see the President of the United States attacking witnesses, the stronger that case gets.”
Fielding friendly questions from Democratic senators, House managers reiterated the heart of their case and accused Trump’s lawyers of falsely stating that there was no evidence that Trump linked security assistance to investigations. Representative Adam Schiff of California, the lead House impeachment manager, responded to Dershowitz’s argument that a president who believed his reelection was in the national interest could demand a quid pro quo to help himself politically without consequence was “very odd.”
“If you say you can’t hold a president accountable in an election year where they’re trying to cheat in that election, then you are giving them carte blanche,” Schiff said. “All quid pro quos are not the same. Some are legitimate and some are corrupt.”
Democrats have argued that Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine was precisely the kind of corrupt scheme that the nation’s founders had in mind when they created impeachment, fearing that an out-of-control president would abuse his power for personal gain. But throughout the day, lawyers for Trump argued that all elected officials make policy decisions to help themselves get reelected.
Answering the question from the three Republican moderates, Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel, said a president could not be removed for a “mixed-motive situation” in which he is acting out of both personal and policy concerns.
“There’s always some personal interest in the electoral outcome of policy decisions and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Philbin told senators. “That’s part of representative democracy.”
In one case, White House lawyers struggled to answer a question from Collins and Murkowski, admitting that they had no evidence to counter Democratic arguments that Trump became interested in investigations of Joe Biden in 2019 only after Biden became a candidate for president.
Trump’s legal team also argued that the House needed to prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt” — a standard of proof that legal experts say has no basis in either the Constitution or the rules of the Senate. And the legal team said that the case was merely “based on a policy difference” between the president and the career diplomats who sounded the alarm on his pressure campaign in Ukraine.
Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, sought unsuccessfully to ask a question about the origins of the impeachment inquiry that named the CIA whistleblower who filed the complaint that spurred it, according to a person familiar with the debate. But the query was rejected repeatedly.
White House lawyers had help making sure their speakers stayed within a five-minute time limit that Roberts strictly enforced, and he occasionally cut off speakers midsentence. Staff for the lawyers held up small white cue cards showing when the clock was about to run out; the Democratic House managers did not appear to have such a system.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael D Shear c.2020 The New York Times Company
